Writhe
by Loki10
Summary: A gothic look at Hisouka and Kuroro's past
1. Default Chapter

Writhe  
  
*I didn't know much about Kuroro or Hisouka when I wrote this, so don't kill me if I say anything out of character*  
  
**I'm introducing a female character here, but she DOES NOT have any romantic involvement with either Kuroro or Hisouka – just in case some fan girls get suspicious**  
  
CHAPTER ONE – The Iron Maiden  
  
"Sir, would you like some coffee to go with your bread rolls?"  
  
Hisouka looked up at the waiter.  
  
"Why, yes, thank you. Decaf please." And he went back to the book he was reading.  
  
'Any minute now,' he though to himself. 'Any minute now…'  
  
And it happened.  
  
A shriek resounded from the alley across the café. A panicked man emerged.  
  
"Murder! There's a dead man in there! There's a dead man in there!"  
  
Hushed whispers arouse from the people about as a nearby policeman went into the alley. Just as quickly as he entered, he left, and back out on the street, pale as a corpse, he began calling back up on his walkie-talkie. The whispers became louder.  
  
"What happened?" he innocently asked the waiter upon his return.  
  
"They found a dead guy in the alley!" the man rasped, quickly and clumsily setting the coffee before him. He was trembling.  
  
"That's terrible!" Hisouka gasped, embodying all the concern of a priest during confession. "Tell me about it."  
  
The waiter nervously wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. "It's not the first time, too. Just yesterday, 14 of this city's businessmen were found dead – killed in cold blood. They were having some kind of meeting, but well, looks like they met a nasty disruption, and a very nasty end. The police don't have any leads or anything, like they all just, just keeled over. A bloody way to keel over though."  
  
Hisouka took a sip of the coffee. "People these days." He shook his head. "What is the world coming to? Did they know who that man in the alley was?"  
  
The waiter shrugged. "A bum I guess. Must've gotten himself in a brawl or something, I dunno."  
  
Hisouka went back to his book as the waiter went on his way, muttering to himself, still in shock. A murder – and just barely twenty feet away.  
  
The murderer could still be out on the street, joining the throng of people trying to steal a peep at the body. Or maybe he was inside that very café. He could even be that man he just gave coffee too. The man with red hair, peacefully reading a book.  
  
'A bum, eh?'  
  
If only he knew. That man in the alley was not a poor drunk pot-bellied slacker like that waiter must have imagined. On the contrary, he was one of the richest and most important men in the country. He should have died with the other 14 the other day, but the lucky man decided to play hooky and skip the meeting. He had had an extra day to live.  
  
'Well, he didn't get lucky this time.' Hisouka thought, finishing the last of the coffee.  
  
He had tried of course. Like every victim he confronted before killing, he had tried to mosey his way out of death, making promises, offering grotesque amounts of money, and finally, just pleading, groveling, and begging with every tear he could muster – all to no avail, of course.  
  
In three seconds flat, he was dead, lying face-down, still wearing that pitiful expression.  
  
Hisouka munched on a bread roll. He didn't usually do assassination jobs. But the Hunter exam and the auction at York New City was months away, and there was nothing short of decent up for grabs - now was not the time to play the part of a thief. The other Genei Ryodan members were nowhere to be found either. No, he'd just have to wait… and until then, settle for the meager life of a vagabond killer. The price those mafia-leader wannabes offered was alright anyway.  
  
The little bell at the café door jingled. A person off the street entered.  
  
The person's aura shot like ice into Hisouka's perception. It was strong, no doubt, but also familiar. It even had a twinge of zetsu like the person was making a careless attempt to hide the nen. For a second he thought it was Kuroro, but no. His aura was somewhat different. Hisouka looked up.  
  
It was a woman, and all at once, he realized why there was such an air of familiarity.  
  
She looked nothing at all like she did before though, when they had last met. But then again, knowing her, and Hisouka smiled at the thought, she would have the most … interesting reason to radically alter her looks.  
  
"Excuse me ma'am. Would you like to join me for a snack…? I think I have some bread rolls left…"  
  
"Hm…?"  
  
Ah, she recognized him.  
  
Beneath the long blonde hair, all tied up in a peach bow (it was a wig of course, close up it was easy to tell), the watery blue eyes (for a touch of innocence - sickening, yet amusing), and the lacy knee-length dress (good heavens, was she trying to look like Pollyanna?), was still Hisouka's good old pal Reane.  
  
She took a seat at Hisouka's table and helped herself to a bread roll.  
  
"So long time no see. You, look great by the way. Does that flabbergasting look have a sweet sunflower- and-daisies name to go with it?"  
  
She snickered through the bits of bread in her mouth.  
  
"As a matter of fact, it does. But I was just about to ditch this costume anyway. The police should be after the blonde bumpkin called 'Mary-sue van Pettite' by now."  
  
She sighed. "Dear Mary-sue was such a sweet little girl. She came into town looking for an honest job for an honest young lady like herself. She found a job at this sweet little novelty shop owned by an equally sweet old man. But unbeknownst to the outside world, the novelty shop housed a massive weapons exchange in its inner recesses. The kindly old man thought that young miss Mary-sue didn't know, but she did. She snuck into the underground weapons shop one dark night and…"  
  
Hisouka gasped in pretended shock. "You killed the old man?"  
  
"Yeah. What's wrong with that?"  
  
"Nothing, really. But just ONE old defenseless geezer?"  
  
"Of course not!" Reane laughed. "That night, that old guy was making an important sale. There were 13 men in the room." She ran a finger across her throat. "All of them."  
  
"Thank goodness." He took a deep gulp of the coffee. "If you were to take out just ONE man… which is already several levels below 'easy' as it is, ha, that would look terrible on your record. Imagine that, Reane the Iron Maiden killed one single guy…"  
  
"Thirteen." She quickly corrected. "Reane the Iron Maiden killed 13 underground dealers for a mafia lord who paid her a nice and hefty price."  
  
"And where did this little fiasco occur?"  
  
"The next city."  
  
"Thank goodness for that. The people here will fall into schizophrenia if they uncover another genocide."  
  
"Your handiwork, no doubt?" Reane glanced at the people out in the street, all nervous, peering at each other, half expecting to find a crazed knife- wielding psychopath to come running down the road.  
  
"Yes. And I beat you, by the way. 13 for you, 15 for me."  
  
She shook her head. "Wrong again. Technically that's 15 targets for you, and 13 targets and 2 security guards for me, so we're even."  
  
They laughed over it, the way they old friends would laugh over a funny movie.  
  
"So anyway," Reane took another bread roll. "How're things with you and the Genei Ryodan? How's your brother? Is he still collecting nen techniques in that book of his?"  
  
"Ah, yes… Spider. They're all still alive and well, and that's all you need to know. And as for Kuroro…" Hisoka shrugged. "I have no idea. I haven't seen him since the last York New City auction. He could be lying dead in a pool of his own blood right now with his throat slashed open, and I wouldn't know… not that I'd really care either." He gulped the remnants of the coffee down. Since when was he referred to as his brother? He was merely the head of the Genei Ryodan, pretending to be the strongest in their group, trying to be suave with his hair slicked back wearing that fuzzy overcoat with the upside down cross…  
  
Reane sensed the sudden resentment in Hisouka's tone, and abruptly changed the topic.  
  
"Hey, speaking of the Ryodan, how's that cute girl you like? You know, the one with the needle and thread?"  
  
"Oh yes, Machi." He lightened up, returning his clownish smirk. Yes, she was quite cute, especially when she got annoyed at his endless attempts at her… it amused him to no end to find her glaring at him and spiting him for one thing or another. "How about you? Found yourself a boy friend yet?"  
  
"I tried. But well, they all just got with the program because they wanted to screw me so, I tried screwing their heads a good 360 degrees backwards to see how they like it and well… it was somewhat unfortunate that none of them really survived."  
  
"Well, there will always be imbeciles in this world…" Hisouka said, finally getting up. "And it is always a pleasure to step on some as you get along… you know what I mean."  
  
He left a few bills on the table.  
  
"Where are you going now?" she asked. She had finished the bread rolls.  
  
"To collect my fee for the 15 gentlemen I put to rest."  
  
"Oh."  
  
She stood up too. "I'll just step into the bathroom and get rid of this damned outfit. Honestly, this wig is itchy… "  
  
And so they went their separate ways, for the time being, anyway.  
  
Hisouka walked out the door destined to be 30,000,000 pieces richer by the end of the day, and Reane, into the Ladies Room for a quick change and to resume her life as the Iron Maiden, freelance hit woman extraordinaire.  
  
But even as she removed the wig, contact lenses and frilly dress, her mind had already began to wander, to a certain thought she had failed to discuss with Hisouka. It concerned him nonetheless, and Kuroro as well. But without a doubt she'd end up calling it to their attention one way or another, sooner or later. Perhaps more sooner than later.  
  
It wasn't as though any of them could entirely forget. Shafts of faint memories would occasionally break through the seal in their minds. They would not forget, and in the wake of those bleak remnants of the past, they would cause fate to turn once more, in their favor, against the painful essence of painted yellow flowers, ceramic puppets, swinging blades hung like pendulums, and the darkest memory of a little house, half buried in the soil… like the voice of a child half drowning in blood.  
  
*Technically I just used this chapter to introduce Reanne, so nothing really happened yet. The REAL story will start in the next chapter.  
  
**If that last paragraph didn't make much sense, it's OK, because it wasn't supposed to make that much sense anyway. It's supposed to give you a clue on what to expect in the following chapters.  
  
***Another couple of things to expect in the following chapters – why Reane is called the 'Iron Maiden' and why (according to this fic anyway) Hisouka and Kuroro aren't very 'brotherly.' 


	2. Step back

Truix Minaes  
  
The air was damp, and the scent of blood and steel was strong on Kuroro's nose. He dared not inhale too deeply, in fear that any noise he would make would hasten the cruelty bent upon him. Far above, the massive crescent- shaped blade hung from a thick, rusty chain. He could see a cluster of dried gore clinging upon its side – he knew that they were bits of human beings who had gone before him. Their flesh and bone seemed to scream at him, at he, who now laid upon the cross-shaped stone slab, the very space where those, whose remnants now lined the blade's edge, spent their last precious moments, crying right beneath the glinting blade.  
  
He squirmed, but he knew that the iron fastenings on his arms and legs forbade much movement. He could not fight against the bonds. And he knew what would happen next. So many times did Mr. Happee tell him about the 'Silver Smile' which ripped people in half. The Silver Smile now would claim him, unless…  
  
He heard a screeching sound from above. He saw the blade shudder, and slowly move, gently swinging from side to side. The screech eased off into a low, dull grating sound, which echoed about in an odd rhythm, in time with the steady swinging.  
  
The massive blade swept from side to side, in an ever widening arc, leaving behind a gray blur in its wake, tracing a hideous smile through the musty air. And as it swung, it descended, creeping lower and lower, towards the figure struggling upon the stone slab.  
  
Kuroro felt a cold bead of sweat trickling down his face. Lower it went, and lower still. He was nervous before, as he watched the blade hang and move. But now, he felt something worse – doubt, and anxiety. He was only eight years old. Would he die this way?  
  
"Where's Hisouka?" He asked himself.  
  
* * *  
  
Kuroro stared out at the gathering dusk. Behind him was a bounty hunter lying almost dead on the moist ground.  
  
"What are you waiting for?" he asked, through the foam and broken teeth in his sweltering mouth. "Finish me off!"  
  
Kuroro ignored him. Even in death, the man was proud. But the sunset was more pleasant to watch. Ironically though, it stood for the 'death' of day, and even as it descended, it seemed to spread its crimson reaches across the sky, like bloody fingers, as though trying to stay atop, as though denying the inevitable sinking. And in death it went, scarlet and burning, beneath the gray of the horizon.  
  
And then it was nighttime.  
  
"Who sent you?" He casually asked, watching the last of the sun disappear.  
  
The bounty hunter was forcing himself to breathe, apparently finding it difficult through the holes in his chest.  
  
"Well?" He finally turned to face him. "You don't have long to live. You might as well answer."  
  
Kuroro didn't really need to know. There were thousands of possible employees for a hunter like him. But it wasn't as though he as much as posed a threat. From their brief battle, Kuroro had learned that, the man, although pompous at first, didn't at all match up to him. The very weakest in the Genei Ryodan could have easily taken care of him. In five seconds flat, Kuroro had rendered him broken, both in bone and ego.  
  
The man took one shaky breath and, believing it to be his final act of valiance, chose to bring his secret to the grave. He rolled his eyes and died on the spot.  
  
Kuroro shrugged. Wasted.  
  
He swept past the corpse without as much as a backward glance, ignoring it's empty sunken eyes staring at the upside down cross on his back.  
  
Yet in the stillness, there suddenly came a stirring. A sound – clapping hands.  
  
Kuroro looked up at the applause.  
  
"Excellent work. I especially liked the part where you tore his torso open. You haven't lost your touch… Kuroro."  
  
Silhouetted tall and sleek against the break of dusk was the applauder, Reanne. So, he had been watched, and without him knowing it.  
  
"So I had an audience to my little… artistic expression. But why did you bother hiding? That's not like you."  
  
"Oh well, you know, I didn't want to disturb you."  
  
A clever concealment of nen, and suddenly, a surprising appearance and a few words in acknowledgement for a job well done; and all for the sake of murderous artistry – indeed, it was the Reanne of long ago.  
  
Kuroro smiled. "It's been a long time… has it been seven years?"  
  
"Eight." She now stepped into the bleak light. "On this very day, our parting stands a total of eight years."  
  
"Ah, yes." Now Kuroro remembered. It was on that date she and he and Hisouka went their separate ways. Since then, he had grown in body and mind and battle skills, very different but yet still somewhat alike that young boy from Orphanage a long time ago.  
  
Orphanage – that little home Kuroro, Hisouka and Reanne spent their childhood days… or was it? He had memories of a sweet little establishment filled with happy little children and a dear lady who had been their matron but still, sometimes, fleeting images would cross his mind, images that didn't belong to that place of sunlight and laughter. A dark room, a cold hard slab, and a consistently grinding sound from the ceiling as some thing was lowered - such a rekindling had more than once came to mind, fleeting and blurry, but yet, Kuroro couldn't help feeling that shadowy as these thoughts were, they were but gnawing sensations pulling him to a greater collaboration of darkness at the back of his head. He knew that they were but mere ushers, pushing and forcing him to the reality of a dead past he had long forgotten.  
  
He was 10 during his earliest memories in that Orphanage. Anything that happened before was a memory he had more than once tried to recollect, but couldn't. There was nothing he could draw, before those days he was in Orphanage, but a blank, and the blankness overwhelmed him like a dreary fog, boundless and fathomless, unless an uncalled for vision came forth, reminding him that something did happen back then, during a time he couldn't remember.  
  
How long he had been in Orphanage, who brought them there, where he first met Reanne, how he knew Hisouka was his brother, what he had against him, and who he really was, and what drove him to his current genocidal ways despite a seemingly wholesome upbringing was beyond him.  
  
After the three of them left the Orphanage, they traveled together for awhile, and oddly enough, they already knew a good deal of combat and nen, more of which, they figured, must have rooted from the days before the Orphanage, none of which any of them, could recall. After a while, the three of them broke up, Hisouka and he, for unsettled rivalry, and Reanne, to chance upon fortune on her own, as she preferred it. And then he was alone.  
  
"What brings you to these parts, Reanne?" he asked. They were both dining at a classy restaurant. It was Kuroro's treat in celebration of their 8- year reunion. Hisouka wasn't there, but that didn't bother him greatly. "Business, I suppose?"  
  
"No." A surprising answer. But then again, what else did she do other than kill? "My business has been delt with, and now I have some free time on my hands before I go up for employment again. How about you?"  
  
"Oh, the usual. But I haven't ran into any fabulously great item in some time. I suppose I'll have to wait 'till the York New City auction." He shrugged. "So you can say I've got some spare time on my hands too."  
  
"That's lucky…" Reanne nibbled at the tip of her bread roll. "Because I have a proposition for you."  
  
Kuroro looked up at her. "Hmm?"  
  
She bit and swallowed. "An interesting little venture I've been pondering over for some time now. If it goes the way I plan it, we'll run into a lot of trouble."  
  
Typical.  
  
"Go on."  
  
"I'm thinking you and I, and Hisoka too, I want him to be in on this…"  
  
Hisoka too? Kuroro felt a sense of foreboding. This would be quite a dangerous project if another elite like Hisoka was being called for. That or this would concern something of the past. Reanne must have uncovered something about it. She, of the three of them had been most curious about their foggy past.  
  
"… as I said, we will run into a lot of trouble, which is really fine, in fact it would be one of the highlights of our little venture I daresay… and well, a lot of goodies as well. A lot of nice and expensive trinkets."  
  
The thief in Kuroro awakened. The personal aspect of their little prospect would have little significance being overshadowed and drowned out by business. Good. That was how he liked it.  
  
"Ever heard of something called Truix Minaes?" she asked.  
  
Kuroro nodded. "An old Jinnian poem goes 'Hisc losk xyre das gruel Truix Minaes, kajil venum' which roughly translates to 'From body, mind and soul be born the Soul Bane.'" He had read it in a recently-published manual on ancient lore.  
  
Reanne smiled. "Absolutely correct. 'Truix Minaes' means 'Soul Bane' or to others, 'Soul Blade' or something of the sort…" she paused to finish another breadstick.  
  
"Some time back, I received some information about the whereabouts of this Truix Minaes thingie. I heard that it was last in the possession of a certain Miss Garise…"  
  
Kuroro raised an eyebrow. "Garise? The Miss Garise? The matroness of our orphanage from way back when…?"  
  
"The one and only." Reanne answered. She chuckled. "Whoever thought our sweet 'ol caretaker had a powerful weapon which we never even knew about…"  
  
A powerful weapon. Indeed, that was how the Truix Minaes was described in the poem.  
  
In the coming of the black age  
  
There will arise a harbinger,  
  
The bringer of carnage  
  
From which there is no survivor  
  
Like a sword stained with souls and blood.  
  
Bodies will flow, washed by flood  
  
The rivers will shine red with screams  
  
As demons return like banished dreams  
  
Take hold of arms, this weapon flare,  
  
Which decides how the humans fare  
  
From body, mind and soul be born the Soul Bane  
  
By which all the earth be consumed in flame  
  
  
  
***  
  
They three were going to return to their old orphanage to find a dangerous, but valuable weapon, once even prophesized in lore. It was amusing, Kuroro thought, that after all that time, they were going to return to the least likely place to unearth a weapon of mass destruction…  
  
"Tell me again how you found out where this thing was…?" Hisoka had finally rejoined them.  
  
They were all inside an express train to the far-off town where their old orphanage was. He was looking forward to interrogating their old matron, forcefully he hoped, to the point of shedding blood even, but unfortunately, it was too early in the morning for him to perk his senses.  
  
He was on the floor lazily stacked card upon card on the third level of his second card tower.  
  
Kuroro was on the other side of the private cabin reading a book about ancient manuscripts concerning forgotten nen techniques. Across him was Reanne scribbling something on a piece of paper.  
  
"Hey, don't ignore me." Hisoka playfully tossed a razor-sharp card in her direction. Without missing a beat, she looked up and caught it between two fingers, inches away from her face. A joker card. She grinned.  
  
"I told you," she said flicking the card back. "Back when I was posing as Mary-sue Van Pettite I overheard the old guy - he was my target remember? - talking about the Truix Minaes. You see, I had tapped his phone line to learn more about him and his arms transactions. He was apparently trying to buy it, for a great amount of money, from a certain Miss Garise of Morning Blue Sunshine Home for Children." She shrugged. "But since he's now permanently out of commission, I figured that it would be okay if we checked it out, um, borrowed it, y' know?"  
  
She turned back to the thing she was scribbling on a piece of paper.  
  
"What do you think?" She asked.  
  
Hisoka smirked. "A flower? How sweet."  
  
Reanne shrugged at her sketch of a flower with five long wilting petals and three stamens sticking out it's middle. Reanne had a knack for sketching and painting. She was particularly good at copying things and people she's seen, met or killed. She just liked the flowers, that kind of flower in particular, because never, as far as her memory served her did she ever have any recollection of encountering that sort of flower. She's known how it looked like for as long as she could remember, but until that day, didn't know what it was called, or at least what type of flower it was. She's never even seen a flower which as much as looked like it.  
  
Ignoring Hisouka's remark, she applied the finishing touches to her creation by shadowing it.  
  
"I would've colored it yellow but I've got nothing yellow…"  
  
Those three new kids are kinda weird aren't they Miss Garise? That kid with the red hair is always stacking cards… the one with the black hair is always reading… and the girl is always drawing yellow flowers… why are they like that, ma'am? Weren't they brought in by…  
  
Reanne snickered at the faint memory. That annoying little snotty kid who kept on asking annoying questions about them had perished during the tragic fire… to this day, Reanne still treasured that day back then when they burned the Orphanage down. From what she knew though, the Orphanage had been rebuilt. But alas, there would be no way to take back all those lives lost… all those poor children who died when the fire started in the middle of the night… it was funny actually.  
  
The train eased to a stop. They were back to explore their roots and unearth a treasure - Truix Minnaes. That and much more.  
  
There they stood on the country town's dusty platform, three of the world's most vicious murderers and no one knew. And not even they themselves had the vaguest idea of what they would find. 


End file.
